Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Eight minutes with Jordan Knight: Interview with TVGuide.ca

I know I’m supposed to be a hard-nosed media professional who girds her loins with objectivity and wears cynicism like it’s this season’s Chanel, but omigosh, omigosh, omigosh!

I’m on CBC’s Cover Me Canada set to interview judge Jordan Knight. Of New Kids on the Block fame. Whom women of a certain age remember gracing numerous T-shirts, pins, bed sheets, and in my case, a fold-out poster from Tiger Beat taped to my closet door. At lip level.

“He must never know about that poster!” Reporter Melissa scolds. “You’ll lose credibility! And keep it zipped about going to the NKOTB-Backstreet Boys concert this summer!” Thirteen-Year-Old Melissa sulks, while Reporter Melissa skims over her questions.

And then, he appears. In a leather jacket, jeans and white T-shirt, the man once named one of People’s Most Beautiful perches atop a stool. Thirteen-Year-Old Melissa’s hand starts twitching and she suddenly needs a glass of water.

Reporter Melissa: You’ve stayed in good shape. What kind of workout are you doing?
Jordan Knight: I hate to say the word yoga, but I do calisthenics, stretching and yoga pretty much every morning. And I just watch what I eat. I don’t eat a lot, and I try to eat non-fattening and non-sugary foods.

Unable to hold her silence, 13-year-old Melissa blurts, “So does that mean no cake and ice cream?” It’s a cheesy reference to a lyric in his song “Stingy,” which has been playing non-stop on her iPod for the past two weeks. Reporter Melissa hangs her head in shame.

He seems unfazed. “I do eat cake and ice cream, but I do it in moderation. I think the only diet that works is the self-control diet.” And that’s Minute 2. Reporter Melissa shoulders back in just as 13-Year-Old Melissa is about to gush about that poster.

Reporter Melissa: Looking back at the ‘80s and ‘90s, are there any fashions you wore that now you’re like ‘What was I thinking?’
Jordan Knight: Actually, I was looking at something the other day. It looked like I was wearing pyjamas, basically. And I was out! I was, like, having a night on the town in a pair of pyjamas, so that was really strange.

Minutes 3 and 4 tick by. Reporter Melissa seems in control. She remembers her awesomely tolerant husband back home, shoves thoughts of the poster to the side, and holds 13-Year-Old Melissa’s twitching hand at bay.

Reporter Melissa: I know you did a quick walk-by on (NKOTB member Donnie Wahlberg’s show) Blue Bloods. Would you ever do your own show?
Jordan Knight: I was the guy in the stadium scene, in the crowd. Joking! But acting? If somebody said ‘I’ve got the perfect part for you’ I would definitely do it. But I don’t believe in my acting skills that much to go and go get it. It’d be fun, though.

Reporter Melissa: Will you do gigs while you’re in Toronto?
Jordan Knight: I might. Chum FM just started playing a new song of mine called "One More Night" and it’s one of my favourite songs on the album Unfinished. If that gains traction, I might do a few shows. I’ll probably do something anyhow.

The news is too much for 13-Year-Old Melissa, and at Minute 6 she bursts in, all flushed and giggly, “I saw you in concert in Hamilton this summer!” He looks up, with the puppy-dog brown eyes 13-Year-Old Melissa saw taped to her closet door every night. “Oh, yeah?’

Reporter Melissa knows what’s coming and tries to dive back in before the words tumble out. But it’s like she’s in one of those sitcom sequences where someone’s moving in super-slow-motion, yelling, “Stooooooop!”

Thirteen-Year-Old Melissa: I totally had a poster of you in my bedroom. You know that one where you’re like this? (She cocks her head to the side and arches an eyebrow.)
Jordan Knight, clearly amused: Which poster? What?!

Thirteen-Year-Old Melissa: Yeah, it said ‘I love Jordan’ at the bottom!
Jordan Knight: Really? I don’t remember that poster.

And that’s Minute 8. The interview is up and I make way for the next reporter, who’s waiting with her veil of cynicism intact.

Reporter Melissa: Idiot!
Thirteen-Year-Old Melissa: Did you see? He only yawned once in the interview! He said it’s because he came in late last night, and that totally proves he didn’t think I was boring!

Reporter Melissa: I can’t take you anywhere.
Thirteen-Year-Old Melissa: Do you think it’s too late to ask for a picture with him?